Tai Chi, Lottery Tickets, and the Cancer Waiting Game

The first time I had cancer, I had a very witty boyfriend. He knew I was doing a green-juice diet, and so he sent me a funny letter in a kelly-green envelope, urging me not to feed its leaves down the juicer. The letter was addressed to “The Impatient Rebecca Ruquist.” He knew that waiting was not my strong suit.

When I first came to a New York cancer center where they knew the trial well, in late December, we thought that patient enrollment might start in February. For someone with active disease, that seemed feasible. “March,” a nurse practitioner told me emphatically, “is simply not an option for you.” My doctors’ efforts to get me through the weeks and months pre-trial worked, and their confidence paid off, however, and I made it into the first cohort of patients to receive the drug. Paradoxically, the drug became available first in Boston, rather than New York, so we jumped ship and rejoined my original medical team. This drug holds great promise, but still no results yet, and it makes me feel kind of sick to face it all so directly.

So let’s change the subject.

How Long? How Much More? When, Already?

Lila Downs, the Mexican folk revivalist, has a delicious version of “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps,” where she introduces a more demanding edge to the bolero’s smooth ambiguity. It reminds me of the Sex and the City episode when Charlotte, fresh from her conversion to Judaism, yells at her boyfriend Harry: “Set the date! Set the date! Set the date!” In one of many improvisational runs, Lila articulates the frustration of generations of women, strung along by their indecisive or evasive lovers. “Hasta cuando,” she sings, “hasta cuando, vida mia, no me hagas perder mas el tiempo, mi vida,” and here “mi vida” is not only a term of endearment for the beloved, but also a reminder that while she waits, her life is slipping away. The song fades out with Lila repeating “hasta cuando…hasta cuando…” — “How long? How much more? When, already? Set the date!”

When I first heard the Bob Marley song “Waiting in Vain” as a teenager, I totally misheard the main lyric. I went around my school singing, in blissful ignorance, “I don’t want a wedding day for your love.” I thought it was a hymn to bohemian romance unfettered by bourgeois rules. I guess I knew more about Marleyism — 11 children, 8 women, etc — than I realized. How long can I wait? “Tears in my eyes bird, tears in my eyes girl, while I’m waiting while I‘m waiting for my turn.”

Tai Chi and Scratch Tickets

The first time I had cancer I took up tai chi classes in the park. It might have taught me patience. My teacher’s flowing movements and aura of silence drew me in. He seemed to contain the vastness of empty space: watching him, time stood still. However, when my turn came to practice , things only got exciting when we played with swords. I liked when the peaceful combinations became edgy combat. Over a calm lunch, my teacher taught me what an enemy does: In tai chi, your opponent tries to throw you off your center of gravity. You can stay in your center, even while the enemy is inside your own body.

I’ve waited for the bus, I’ve waited for brunch, I’ve waited for boys to call. After my stem cell transplant, I had to wait until day 100 for some of my restrictions to be lifted. A friend visited around day 40 with a cache of scratch lottery cards, one for each day between then and 100. I think I’ll send someone out to the bodega now, to get me a few more.

Rebecca Ruquist is a three-time cancer survivor from Boston who trained as an academic and likes to walk around European cities. She is currently working on projects about health tourism, traveling overseas for medical care, and “First in Man” clinical trials. Rebecca’s parents were macrobiotic when she was growing up. She wonders if all that tofu, brown rice and seaweed caused her health problems as an adult. A yoga and meditation practitioner, Rebecca is interested in the cues the body sends the mind about health and disease, and whether we are able to listen to them. You can follow Rebecca on Twitter and Facebook.